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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24566530">Spindrift</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reynier/pseuds/Reynier'>Reynier</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Boats and Ships, Definitely written as lancelot/gawain but uhhhh theres not a single actually romantic thing so., Islands, M/M, Pirates, but i tried, oops i lesbianed it!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:26:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,087</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24566530</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reynier/pseuds/Reynier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Good land?”<br/>“Uh… define good land.”<br/>“Land where no one wants to kill us?” said Gawain, in a voice which indicated he knew this was too much to hope for.<br/>A wave crested over the side of the boat, neatly missing Lancelot but smacking Gawain full in the furious face. “Doubtful. But come on! Nothing wrong with people wanting to kill us.”<br/>“You don’t know that.” He shook himself like a dog and only succeeded in whipping his eyes with sopping wet strands of hair. “Maybe they’ll succeed.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gawain/Lancelot du Lac (Arthurian)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Arthurian_Server_Squad</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Spindrift</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/secace/gifts">secace</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>from lou's prompt about the ocean at night and then uhhh it got out of hand<br/>also here we see the rey reverting to her natural lancelot characterisation so have fun with that</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>    “I hate boats,” said Gawain, shivering, his cloak clutched tightly around him, “I hate them I hate them I hate them.”</p><p>    “Hmm,” said Lancelot, tactfully. He quite liked boats. They tended to provide him with opportunities for a) being alone, and b) jumping into large bodies of water, both of which he very much enjoyed. </p><p>    Gawain did not like either of these things. He was very much a people person and large bodies of water had terrified him ever since, as a young boy, he had fallen from a low cliff into the bay below Stromness. He had been in the water for ten minutes, unable to do anything but keep his head above water, before a fisherman had hauled him into his skiff and let him gag saltwater into the entrails bucket. He did not like the ocean. </p><p>    But here he was in a rickety rowboat floating somewhere off the southwestern coast with only a sword, a flickering oil lamp, and a Lancelot for protection. The latter was considerably more reassuring than the first two, because aside from his general Lancelottishness, he could also hold his breath for a truly ridiculous <em>two and a half hours</em>, and find sea gates. What exactly a sea gate was had never been explained to Gawain, but Lancelot had assured him that he could find one if need be. </p><p>    And now here he was, methodically drawing the oars back over and over again while Gawain, cold and miserable, huddled in the front of the boat. “Look on the bright side!” Lancelot’s voice was ridiculously cheery considering their current predicament and the fact that he rarely expressed many emotions aside from moping and quietly amused. “We’re almost there. It’s our own little adventure!”</p><p>“Yeah,” muttered Gawain. The sea spat water at him and he spat back at it. “How do you know, anyway? I can’t see a thing past ten feet out.”</p><p>    Lancelot managed to shrug in between strokes of the oars, an impressive feat. “I don’t know, I can just tell. Give us ten minutes and we should reach land.”</p><p>    “Good land?”</p><p>    “Uh… define good land.”</p><p>    “Land where no one wants to kill us?” said Gawain, in a voice which indicated he knew this was too much to hope for.</p><p>    A wave crested over the side of the boat, neatly missing Lancelot but smacking Gawain full in the furious face. “Doubtful. But come on! Nothing wrong with people wanting to kill us.”</p><p>    “You don’t know that.” He shook himself like a dog and only succeeded in whipping his eyes with sopping wet strands of hair. “Maybe they’ll succeed.”</p><p>    Whatever Lancelot planned on saying in return was buried beneath Gawain’s miserable spluttering as the sea once again victimized him. His cloak, which was unoiled, weighed him down now like lead saddlebags, and his waterlogged hair was near-black and plastered to the sides of his face. Infuriatingly, Lancelot had mostly avoided the seaspray and was smiling blandly in the light of the flickering oil lamp. He looked, by Lancelot standards, <em>happy. </em></p><p>A horrible scraping noise shuddered through the boat. “Ah,” said Lancelot, once Gawain had finished screeching, “we have found land.”</p><p>    They had. Or rather, they had found rocks, and land was some distance ahead, just visible in the sallow oily light. Gawain squinted. “How do we get there?”</p><p>    Lancelot’s eyes glinted in a moment’s reflection before he dropped the oars in the bottom of the boat, grabbing the oil lamp with one hand and reaching the other out to Gawain. “I can walk on water a little bit.”</p><p>    The shivering stopped. “<em>What</em>?”</p><p>    “I mean, not much. Just a dozen yards or so and then I start to sink." </p><p>    Numbly, Gawain took his hand. “You <em>never </em>mentioned this to me before? It’s never been topical? Useful, perhaps?”</p><p>    “Not really, no. Gawain, you win any fight that you have at noon. Sometimes life is just like that.” He took a confident step onto the dark, frothing water beside the boat and then, when what he thought of as simply a personality quirk did not fail him, he yanked a horrified Gawain out onto the water beside him. After a moment of vertigo on Gawain's part, unreality asserted itself and said: you aren’t sinking. There’s something hard on your feet. Must be land! He hobbled a successful few steps forward, clutching Lancelot’s arm like the drowning man he very much did not want to be.</p><p>    But despite the threat of sharp rocks, sinking, or Lancelot’s sniggering, they made it to land alive and without falling into the water. The moon had deigned to emerge from behind thick clouds and cast the small island into sharp relief. Before them, the gravelled bank stretched up aways until it hit a crag. Some distance beyond that a dark shape lurked at the top of the slope. </p><p>    “There must have been a Roman watchtower here, a hundred years ago or so,” breathed Gawain. The magnitude of time and the world was leering at him. “You think a hundred years from now Camelot will be like that? Just a ruin in the middle of nowhere?”</p><p>    “Camelot will stand.” Shooting him a smile, Lancelot forged on up the incline. 
    Gawain scrambled behind him after dumping his useless cloak on the rock. “Why so hopeful?”</p><p>    “Maybe I’m feeling hopeful right now.”</p><p>    “You’re-- wait a moment.” Gawain paused, an incredulous frown overtaking his face. “You let me take the Water Bridge!”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>    “You can <em>walk on water </em>and you let <em>me </em>take the Water Bridge! I hate water!”</p><p>    “Well, yes,” said Lancelot reasonably, stopping in front of the steep crag to examine possible paths of ascent, “but to be fair I didn’t know you hated water when that happened.”</p><p>    “But--” Indignation was rendering him mute. “But you can <em>walk on water</em>! Why didn’t you say that when I offered to take the Water Bridge?”</p><p>    “Um…” Lancelot’s questing hand found a solid outcropping, and he took a careful step up the sharp incline. “Because I had just arrived at Camelot and I thought it would be rude to go against what Sir Gawain said and I was quite stressed at the time and no one even knew my name.”</p><p>    “Oh.” Unasked, Gawain looped his hands together and held them out for Lancelot’s other boot. “Well, I suppose that makes sense. You’re too polite for your own good. Come on, up you go!” </p><p>    Together they hoisted him up the crag. Once he had found the upper ledge and shaken out his arms, he reached one hand down to help Gawain up. “That was successful,” said Lancelot, turned away from the dropoff, and saw the crossbow. “Ah.”</p><p>    “Greetings,” said Gawain weakly. He was very cold and very tired and he didn’t like being nice when he was in a bad mood. </p><p>    “Greetings,” echoed the hood behind the crossbow. The two figures at its side murmured an agreement. “What brings you to Kirrin in the middle of the night dressed in finery?”</p><p>    Gawain made a quick mental calculation which was undone by the fact that his mouth was moving faster than his mind. “A party.”</p><p>    “Try again.”</p><p>    His two decades of work as a court diplomat reasserted themselves with force. “I’m sorry, not the time for jokes.” <em>Think. </em>“We’re merchants, our ship sank some ways north. We just washed up.”</p><p>    Lancelot, who was not a good liar but respected Gawain’s talents, opted to remain silent for the time being.</p><p>    “Your friend looks awful big for a merchant,” said the figure to the left. </p><p>    The one with the crossbow gestured it. “And you both have swords.”</p><p>    They exchanged a glance. “Ornamental?” Gawain tried weakly, at the same time as Lancelot gave up the ghost and said, “We’re knights from the court of King Arthur.”</p><p>    It might have been a stupid thing to say. It <em>would </em>have been a stupid stupid thing to say if it were anyone but Lancelot, for whom the world parted like-- well, like water. If certain personages currently thought it was stupid, they would, Gawain was sure, quickly learn differently (or, depending on what mistakes they made in the interrim, very slowly indeed). The only question was how exactly to bring about that happy state of affairs in which all stupidity was unmasked as simply Lancelot. </p><p>    The fellow with the crossbow hissed out a breath, then tossed the hood back. Beneath was a lean face, crisscrossed with the kind of scars that came from a lifetime of fighting. “Well, up you get, sir knights. You’re in Roman hands now.”</p><p>    “And Saxon.” The man on the right raised a hand plaintively. “I’m a Saxon.”</p><p>    “I’m from Egypt,” said the figure on the left who, upon closer examination, was a woman in pants with her hair shorn off. “If we’re being specific.”</p><p>    “I know the king of Egypt!” said Gawain brightly. “Well, former king. Does that help?”</p><p>    They stared at him. “What?”</p><p>    He realised this was perhaps a misstep. “King Priamus?” he tried, regardless. </p><p>    “The traitor?”</p><p>    “Ah,” said Gawain, “yes.”</p><p>    “Doesn’t help much.” The woman shrugged. “I’m ambivalent towards kings of all sorts. It’s what comes of being a camp woman. Anyway, do you have money on you?”</p><p>    “No,” said Lancelot, who had given all of his to a nice farmer and his daughter he had met on the road the day before. </p><p>    “No,” said Gawain, who had dropped his coin purse into the ocean in the hopes of bribing Neptune to spare him. He didn’t regret it; it seemed to have worked. </p><p>    “Great.” The self-described Roman waved the crossbow again. “So can we kill them?”</p><p>    The Saxon crossed his arms. “We should interrogate them. King Arthur is a bitter rival.”</p><p>    “For you.”</p><p>    “Yes, for me, in a very specific cultural sense, although I own I have never rivalled him before myself.”</p><p>    “What are we interrogating them about?” asked the woman. </p><p>    “Just… things.”</p><p>    “Things?”</p><p>    The game of tennis, which Lancelot and Gawain had been curiously following, stalled. “Yes,” said the Saxon lamely, “just… things.”</p><p>    Groaning, the Roman nodded to the fortress on the hill which, upon closer inspection, was not quite as dilapidated as it had first appeared. “Let’s just get them inside.” Distantly, thunder rumbled. “A storm’s coming.”</p><p> </p><p>    The storm came and stayed, hammering at the brittle stone walls and swelling the subterranean stream that lay at the center of the structure, carved into the rock face. Gawain and Lancelot sat huddled with their backs to it, the one trying not to freeze to death and the other watching intently for an opening. </p><p>    “I’m Sir Galessin of Orkney,” said Gawain, his lies interrupted by bouts of chattering teeth. “And this is my friend Sir Lionel.”</p><p>    The woman raised an eyebrow. “Sir Lionel? The one from the magic lake?”</p><p>    “Hmm,” said Lancelot tacitly. </p><p>    “And how did you wash up here?”</p><p>    “Got ambushed in an emporium inn and stole a boat,” Gawain admitted. It was the truth. “What about you lot, then?”</p><p>    “Oh, well…” The Roman with the crossbow raised it slightly in a lackadaisical signal that it was very nice of his prisoner to inquire about him. “Emporia need things shipped in and out, don’t they? Merchants need things stolen to keep on their toes, don’t they? Soldiers need a nice retirement with a little bit of adventure, don’t they?”</p><p>    “We’re pirates,” said the Saxon. “I’m Ælfrith. This is Clodia and Amatus.”</p><p>    The wind doubled in volume and even the pirates, bundled as they were in oilskin, shivered. “You shouldn’t tell them our names,” said Clodia. </p><p>    “Why not?”</p><p>    “They could… I don’t know, report us to Lucius or Arthur or something.”</p><p>    A plan tickled at the edges of Gawain’s thoughts. He glanced at Lancelot, who seemed alert but otherwise perfectly at ease. He would cotton on. Or if he didn’t, it would be a funny story to tell later. </p><p>    (There was no doubt in his mind that there would be a later. There was always a later, for them.)</p><p>    “I think they’re lovely names,” he said, suppressing his body’s frantic pleas for warmth. “Much better than Lionel’s. Did you know that means ‘beetle’ in Occitan?”</p><p>    Emotions didn’t tend to make their way to Lancelot’s face unless he put them there, for which he was currently grateful. He opted to hum impartially. Clearly Gawain was planning something, but why it involved inventing things about the name Lionel he didn’t know. </p><p>    When the pirates chuckled slightly, he continued, putting on a wheedling tone. “And it suits his master. It’s his fault we’re ambushed. You’d be much better off killing him and letting me go get you something nice for your troubles once we get to shore.”</p><p>    “Oh, that’s rich,” murmured Lancelot, who had cottoned onto the general plan but was not a particularly talented actor. </p><p>    “Rich?” said Gawain. He was warming to the part. “Rich? Well, unlike you after you bankrupt yourself. Thanks for getting me in this sorry mess, you bastard.”</p><p>    “You have a problem with me? Fight me like a man without your sword.”</p><p>    As the pirates stared, too bemused to be wary, Gawain shot to his feet. “I will, you bastard!” And he pushed Lancelot into the river. </p><p>    There was a very loud splash. Then there was silence, groans from Amatus as he pushed himself up, crossbow in hand, to go fish Lancelot onto the bank again. Then, concerningly, there was more silence. </p><p>    “Oh, damn it all,” Gawain whispered in melodramatic realization. “He doesn’t know how to swim. Well, he had a good run of it.”</p><p>    Amatus spun to face him. “You <em>killed </em>him?</p><p>    “Oops?”</p><p>    The pirates did not seem to know what to do about this, and they spent a good thirty seconds in silent confusion. “That’s…” Amatus hovered by the bank uncertainly. “Well, one problem solved, I suppose.”</p><p>    To her credit, Clodia saw it coming. She saw the water part, she saw the emerging hand, and she opened her mouth to scream a warning which came too late as Amatus was yanked bodily by one ankle into the deep subterranean stream. The water closed again as quickly as it had parted. If Clodia and Ælfrith had been able to focus on the fate of Amatus, they would have spent several minutes in horrified silence before an unconscious but alive body was tossed up on the bank. But they were not watching. Instead they were lunging for Gawain, the one with a <em>seaxe </em>knife and the other with a short cudgel. Gawain, who had been prepared for this, dodged under Ælfrith’s arm and managed to reach Lancelot’s sword where it had been carelessly propped against a rock. </p><p>    He did not like Lancelot’s sword. Lancelot’s sword made him feel very much not himself; or rather, if he was being brutally honest, it made him feel like a him that he tried very hard not to be. Fortunately for both Gawain’s state of mind and the pirates’ state of mortality he did not have the time to unsheath it, instead swinging it in a low arc to contend with Clodia’s cudgel. Between wood, even Roman-made, and the three feet of wicked metal, there was no contention. The cudgel went spinning off in one direction and Gawain went in the other, pivoting to bring one arm of the crossguard down on Ælfrith’s elbow joint. An unholy screech of pain reverberated around the partially-crumbled room. It might have been a trick of the mind, but Gawain could have sworn the red hilt of the sword <em>hummed </em>under his hand. </p><p>    Clodia, who could not be faulted for self-preservation, stopped in her tracks. “We can work something out,” she babbled, raising her hands. “We have money! Do you want money?”</p><p>    The jetblack stone in the pommel winked at him, and it was hard to look at her face. The sheath didn’t seem to be helping-- perhaps whatever it was that Lancelot didn’t seem to notice but which affected Gawain so deeply wasn’t in the blade but the hilt. Or perhaps it was all his imagination.</p><p>    The unconscious body of Amatus thudded to the riverbank. “He’s alive,” said Lancelot, in a voice he probably thought was reassuring but which was not, because he was Lancelot and had been underwater lurking like a sea serpent for the last several minutes. “Oh, you’ve got my sword. I thought you didn’t like it.”</p><p>    “I don’t,” said Gawain plaintively. He didn’t drop it. It didn’t seem respectful, not to something so-- <em>alive. </em>“Come on, get out of there. You’re not cold?”</p><p>    “It’s just water.” But he pulled himself out regardless. </p><p>    Clodia seemed to be doing some very fast mental arithmetic. “I have rope for you to tie us up. Against the wall. Food in the chest by the side. Skiff on the southern shore. Makings of a fire.”</p><p>    “Fire would be good, right Gawain?” said Lancelot. There was something in Gawain’s eyes that needed distracting. </p><p>    “Yeah…” The edge of the sword hadn’t wavered. “Fire.” Then he shook himself and cast the red-hilted sword towards Lancelot with slightly more force than it warranted. “I’m not actually cold anymore, but something to eat would be nice.” And he went to get the rope. </p><p> </p><p>    The rain didn’t pass that night, but the fire crackled and leapt in the abandoned Roman fort. Gawain, for whom food solved all emotional problems, was happily rooting through the pirates’ bags. He wasn’t above a little unneeded theft as punishment for the crime of irritating him, although the three ambushers were oddly endearing and he was pleased they hadn’t been killed. Lancelot was prodding at the fire, happy as a clam but much more reflective. “You’re doing alright?” he said at length. </p><p>    “What?” Gawain paused with his ad hoc criminality to think for a moment. “Oh. Yes. Your sword unsettles me is all. It really doesn’t do anything to you?”</p><p>    “Do what?”</p><p>    “I don’t know, make you feel… violent?”</p><p>    The fire snapped. “I don’t think so,” said Lancelot. “No more than any other sword, at least.”</p><p>    “Huh.” Activities abandoned, he trotted back to the fire and plopped himself down next to Lancelot. “Well, swords are funny. Do all sorts of things to a man. Or nothing at all.”</p><p>    Lancelot hummed under his breath and dipped his head briefly to rest it on Gawain’s shoulder. Because Gawain was much shorter than him, the angle was quite uncomfortable, but it was the thought that counted. “I think a sword is just your thoughts in steel,” he said. He thought it meant something, although he wasn’t certain what. </p><p>    Or maybe it was just his imagination. </p>
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